6 Things You Need to Know Before Creating Online Courses

In online education, if you want to scale, you should seriously think of online courses. In this article, we will share six points, you need to know before creating online courses.

#1: If there is a similar online course, it’s a GOOD NEWS!

You might think otherwise, but having other similar online course, only shows that there is a market for your course. Vice-versa is also very much true.

If you come up with an online course, which is not present online, then most probably, it is because no one is interested in paying money for it. You might think otherwise, but very much same thing could be also available free of cost. And your potential students won’t see much value in it.

#2: If you’re not able to find good idea for your online course, then you should read this

Basic question- Why should students buy your online course?

Answer- They have a problem. That only your course can solve.

You need to find, what is the most difficult problem to solve of your target customer. Find a problem and eliminate it with your online course. To find the problem, talk to your target customers, read their social media posts, talk to their influencers etc. In short, listen to them.

People who listen to their customers most are able to create the best online course.

#3: Start now, rather than waiting to become an expert

I am not saying this because internet is full of people who just say whatever comes in their head (if they have one).

It is always better to learn small portion of whole picture and start online course of that. Meanwhile you keep on learning the rest. For example, if you are targeting accountancy, then as soon as you master balancing of balance sheets, you can start an online course.

If you want to create an online course on a particular topic thing, but don’t know enough to tackle question & answer from the students, then only simple solution is to LEARN. And as you LEARN and start your own online course, gradually you will gain enough confidence to teach whole subject as well.

#4: People like to subscribe online courses– even when they can find the same for free

It is very much possible that people ‘could’ find the same information for free, that you plan to what you plan to offer as paid online course. But they have to search for it and consume it.

In addition, that information may not be customised as per their needs. If you can you customise your offering exactly to meet your customer’s pain points, then your online course will sell.

The free resources, most of the times, is half baked. It is just a compiled from various sources and not at all customised. You just need to take the most viewed or downloaded free resources and then customise it according to the needs of your target customer.

You can let your students figure out, which resource is legit and which is junk. In our experience, if you can provide detailed description of your course along with teaser and genuine looking reviews, then your course will sell.

#5: Why you should create a SMALL online course

We have seen that when most of the tutors create online courses, they try to cram it with everything they know. They want to create something big with in-depth knowledge.

We believe that is a mistake. Rather, when you are starting, create short courses. These online courses should solve one particular problem.

Later based on feedback, you can create rather bigger and lengthier version of same course. Our experience says that students generally first try to experiment with smaller courses, then go for bigger and advanced version of the same.

#6: Learn From Mistakes of Other People

This point might seem pretty obvious to you. But believe us when we say that very few people actually do this. Most of the tutors we know, try to figure out everything on their own. This way they end us wasting lot of their time and energy (and money).

You could simply turn to someone, who has already created similar course or who has seen hundreds of such courses succeeding and failing. This is called shortcut to success.

We hope that this article helped you in some what in understanding do’s and don’ts while creating your first online course.